Re: ADA made me hate programming

[Wilson <leon.winslow@notes.udayton.edu>]

On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:11:41 -0400, <anon@anon.org> wrote:

>Plus:
> Reference: "The Development of the C Language" by Dennis M. Ritchie
>
>         As for Algol, Ritchie states: "BCPL, B, and C all fit firmly
> in the traditional procedural family typified by Fortran and Algol 60."
> He never states that Algol or Fortran was used to build C.
>
>

C is a structured assembly language for the DEC PDP 11.  If you doubt  
this, go back and examine the PDP 11 assembly language.  All of that ++  
and -- are a standard part of the assembly language addressing modes.  In  
particular, all of those indirect references (pointers) were necessary  
because the PDP 11 came with a 16 bit instruction set and only 8 bits were  
allowd for the data address.   Fortran, Cobol and every other higher level  
language of the time omitted pointers because almost all of their  
addressing was direct.  (You might also want to compare C to Bliss another  
sturctured assembly language for the PDP 11 and then ask which language  
copied from where.  The two languages offer an interesting contrast.)   
Richie started on the PDP 7, but quickly moved to the PDP 11 and may have  
forgotten the details that led to the final result.

Also, before you quote Richie or any other author, you need to read a  
peice by Isaak Asimov on how authors are the last people  to understand  
what they did and how they did it.  A good author creates much better than  
he/she knew at the time.  Later he/she tries to explain what they did and  
why; in the process, he/she creates a new,logical story.  The author  
beieves the new story and it sounds so good that almost evryone else does  
also.  Human nature is a funny thing.



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